In every conflict since the Korean War, the United States has enjoyed an air domain advantage that gave its ground and surface forces the freedom to maneuver and accomplish their missions. However, the principal adversary for whom the United States is now preparing—China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—has created an antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) environment in the western Pacific that has severely eroded this advantage. Only a small subset of U.S. aviation can operate in this environment.1
The PLA has made considerable improvements in its own offensive aviation capabilities, including vertical envelopment and close air support, that can be employed inside its A2/AD network and that would be difficult for the United States to counter through offensive or defensive counterair, on which air-land and air-sea-battle doctrines heavily depend.2 Consequently, there is an increasing role for ground-based air defense to neutralize adversary aviation.
Considering this threat picture, the Marine Corps’ ground combat element (GCE) can expect to find itself defending against aviation using organic assets. To accomplish this, the GCE needs a medium-range air-defense system that can maneuver alongside the rest of its combat power. The system must integrate a medium-range air-defense sensor, launcher, and fire-control unit and be mounted on the chassis of an amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) as a transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR). This proposed ACV-based TELAR—referred to here as the ACV Medium-Range Air Defense or ACV-MRAD—would be under a separate battalion in each Marine Corps division, with an air-defense company assigned to each infantry regiment to provide medium-range air defense.
The Current state of Air Defense
The cornerstone of U.S. ground-based air defense is the MIM-104 Patriot, which provides tactical air and ballistic-missile defense. This is augmented by the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system that expands the ballistic-missile defense envelope, while the newly developed Indirect Fires Protection Capability would provide air defense against low altitude threats. These systems are to be integrated in the Army’s overarching Integrated Battle Command System to ensure the coordination of fires at different engagement distances to increase effectiveness.3 They are highly capable, with the Patriot a vital part of Ukraine’s air-defense network since 2023.4
However, these systems have limited mobility and need hours for all components to be emplaced before reaching operational capability. For example, a Patriot battery requires the emplacement of a trailer-mounted radar, fire-direction center, and an array of four to six launching units spread out over several square miles.5 Such a system would be challenging to employ in the western Pacific with its many small islands within the weapons engagement zone of PLA Rocket and Artillery Forces.
Efforts to develop and field more mobile air-defense systems, such as the Light Marine Air-Defense Integrated System (LMADIS) and an improved FIM-92 Stinger man-portable air-defense system, are focused primarily on short-range air defense to counter Group 1–3 (up to approximately 1,320 lbs maximum gross takeoff weight) unmanned aerial systems (UASs).
While these systems are effective against small threats, they have an effective range of roughly 6 miles—well short of the effective range of China’s latest generation of helicopter- or UAS-launched antitank guided missiles, which can engage targets out to 12 to 15 miles and be carried by the Z-10 attack helicopter.6
With Force Design 2030, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) of III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) was created as a component of a stand-in force for missions in the A2/AD environment.7 The MLR has an organic littoral antiair battalion with air defense capability in a LMADIS battery and a medium-range intercept capability battery, which integrates with Israel’s Iron Dome launcher to engage out to 43 miles. While these units ensure air-defense coverage for the MLR and III MEF, the more conventionally structured I and II MEF lack medium-range air defense.
As the GCE of the Marine expeditionary unit (MEU), a battalion landing team (BLT) currently depends on short-range systems for organic air defense. While the missions of the MLR as a stand-in force do not require a great deal of organic tactical mobility from vehicles, this is not the case with the MEUs of I and II MEF, which depend on ship-to-shore connectors such as ACVs to land and operate as mechanized infantry.
While a MEU’s higher-tier air defense traditionally has been the task of its aviation combat element (ACE) as well as adjacent destroyer squadrons and carrier strike groups, these assets will be strained in a conflict with China. Under that scenario, air defense for the GCE from adjacent and supporting units will no longer be guaranteed. For example, during a Marine Air Ground Task Force Warfighting Exercise in February 2023, the assault force’s AH-1Z Viper helicopter inflicted serious losses on the stand-in force during the opening hours of the exercise because of the force’s lack of both organic and supporting air-defense coverage. If the GCE had had an ACV-MRAD, the Viper threat would have been negated.
The Proposed System
The ACV-MRAD could be realized by integrating existing subsystems in the Department of Defense or NATO allies’ arsenals. While not devoid of risks, such an approach could significantly expedite the system’s development and fielding. The ACV-MRAD could be classified as a middle-tier acquisition program to allow for rapid prototyping and fielding.
As this base vehicle must be capable of tactical mobility both on land and as a ship-to-shore connector, the ACV is an excellent candidate. It is designed as the Marine Corps GCE’s principal mechanized infantry vehicle with a payload capacity of 7,280 lbs.8
The ACV-MRAD must be capable of engaging rotary- and fixed-wing tactical aviation out to 25 miles. The sensor would be a multifunction active electronically scanned array radar, similar to the RPS-42 Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar on the LMADIS, but larger and more powerful to engage targets at medium ranges and altitudes. The RADA/Leonardo Improved/Enhanced Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar would detect helicopters at 28 miles and tactical aircraft at 40 miles at more than 30,000 feet. Per manufacturer specifications, it is compatible with the ACV’s military-standard electrical system.9 Weighing less than 440 lbs, the Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System electro-optical sensor could be mounted to enable passive targeting that does not alert an enemy aircraft’s radar warning receiver.10
The launch system could be a scaled-down variant of the Army’s Multi-Mission Launcher (MML) that carries 15 canisters, each capable of launching an AIM-9X-2 infrared-guided missile to a range of 19 to 25 miles.11 Scaling the MML down from a triple stack of five canisters to a single stack would yield a five-canister launcher weighing less than 5,000 lbs.
The sensor and launch systems would aggregate to about 6,300 lbs, leaving almost 1,000 lbs allowance for various mounts and other ancillary systems as well as the fire-control system integrated into the vehicle’s hull. The ACV-MRAD would have a three-person crew: driver, gunner, and commander.
Force Structure and Challenges
The ACV-MRAD should be a Marine Corps division-level asset assigned to a newly formed and separate battalion organized similarly to the MLR’s littoral antiair battalion, but sized so that an ACV-MRAD company could reinforce each division infantry regiment. Assuming a MEU BLT must be able to fend off a company-reinforced vertical assault of 10 PLA Changhe Z-18 medium-lift transport helicopters with Z-10 medium-attack helicopter escorts, it should have a platoon of four ACV-MRADs with a total of 40 missiles, which includes a single set of 20 reloads.
Still, several technical and tactical obstacles must be addressed. As the ACV-MRAD is meant to be a highly mobile system, not part of an integrated air-defense system, tactics, techniques, and procedures must be developed to coordinate fires among different ACV-MRAD vehicles. Furthermore, the ACV-MRAD’s longer engagement range would increase the risk of blue-on-blue fratricide.
The ACV-MRAD would provide Marine Corps GCEs with an organic ability to defend against aviation at medium range and exceeding the range of PLA rotary-wing aircraft weapons. If the challenges can be overcome, the ACV-MRAD system would afford the GCE commander greater survivability and flexibility to maneuver when emplaced ashore.
1. LTC Alex Vershinin, USA, “The Challenge of Dis-Integrating A2/AD Zone: How Emerging Technologies Are Shifting the Balance Back to the Defense,” Joint Force Quarterly 97, no. 2 (30 March 2020); and RADM Michael McDevitt, USN (Ret.), “China’s Far Sea’s Navy: The Implications of the ‘Open Seas Protection’ Mission,” Center for Naval Analyses, revised April 2016.
2. Wilson C. Blythe Jr., “AirLand Battle: The Development of a Doctrine,” master’s thesis, Eastern Michigan University, 1 March 2010; and Andrew F. Krepinevich, “Why AirSea Battle?” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 19 February 2010.
3. Nathaniel Pierce, “Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense System Achieves Full Rate Production,” Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, 12 April 2023.
4. Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Patriot,” 23 August 2023, missilethreat.csis.org/system/patriot.
5. Department of the Army, Army Technical Publication 3-01.7: Air Defense Artillery Brigade Techniques (March 2016), 2-1.
6. Andreas Rupprecht, “More Details Emerge about New Chinese Helicopter-launched ATGM,” Janes.com, 7 August 2020.
7. U.S. Marine Corps, “Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR),” Marines.mil, 11 January 2023.
8. BAE Systems, “Amphibious Combat Vehicle,” www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/amphibious-combat-vehicle.
9. DRS RADA Technologies, “ieMHR: Improved and Enhanced Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar (Product Data Sheet),” September 2019, www.drsrada.com/products/iemhr.
10. Inder Singh Bisht, “Rheinmetall to Upgrade Norwegian NASAMS Sensors,” The Defense Post, 5 January 2023, www.thedefensepost.com/2023/01/05/rheinmetall-norwegian-nasams-sensors/?expand_article=1.
11. U.S. Army, Acquisition Support Center, “Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) Increment 2–Intercept Block 1,” 2022, asc.army.mil/web/portfolio-item/ms-ifpc_inc_2-i/.